Seattle Growth Podcast 6.5: An outsider’s perspective on community in Seattle

Seattle is now—and always has been—a boom town. Its growth has come in fits and starts, from the gold rush days to the current era of head-spinning transformation. And so it’s also been a city of newcomers.

In such a place, an outsider can sometimes interpret the zeitgeist more accurately than those who have resided there for a lifetime, or even just a couple of years.

Season six of the Seattle Growth Podcast continues to explore how Seattleites are building or finding a sense of community in a city that is growing and changing so rapidly.

And episode 6.5 explores community through the observant eyes of a frequent visitor and through the critical lens of a well-traveled writer who was born and raised in Seattle.

Shane Mauss, a nationally touring comedian who has appeared on late night TV and has his own special on Comedy Central, offers his impressions of Seattle from a recent visit with his Stand Up Science show.

And author Thomas Kohnstamm, whose novel Lake City is set in Seattle at the turn of the 21st century, shares his perspective on how the community has changed over the decades he has live here and offers his hopes for the future of this growing city.

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The Seattle Growth Podcast is hosted and produced by Jeff Shulman, the Marion B. Ingersoll Professor of Marketing at the UW Foster School of Business.

Shulman is also the producer of On the Brink, the acclaimed documentary of history, hope and determination to save Seattle’s vanishing Central District. You can view the film at upcoming screenings August 15 at the Neptune Theater and October 19 at the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI).

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